Ethereum & Altcoins
Ethereum and the broader altcoin universe drive most of the daily news flow in crypto — every protocol upgrade, every L2 launch, every validator-economics change, every altcoin rotation. LeoDex News covers Ethereum's roadmap (Pectra, Verkle trees, danksharding) alongside the L2 ecosystem (Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, zkSync) and the major non-Bitcoin assets that move markets (SOL, XRP, NEAR, ICP, AVAX, and more).
We focus on the mechanism, not the meme. When NEAR rallies 19% in a session, we explain what shipped to drive it. When validator queues spike, we trace it to the staking-derivatives flow. When a new L2 ships, we surface the actual tradeoffs vs the existing ones. Trade these assets on LeoDex — non-custodial, no signup, 100+ DEXes across 60+ chains.
Latest in Ethereum & Altcoins
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Ethereum Foundation's zkAPI goes live on mainnet for private AI API payments
The Ethereum Foundation said zkAPI, built with the Open Anonymity Project, is live on Ethereum mainnet. It lets users pay for AI and other APIs without revealing billing identities, but it doesn't hide prompts or network metadata.
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Bitwise and Franklin Templeton XRP ETF clients buy $7.24 million in XRP
Clients of the Bitwise and Franklin Templeton spot XRP ETFs bought another $7.24 million of XRP, Crypto Briefing reported Oct. 2, as total inflows across XRP ETFs reached around $1.79 billion.
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Circle minted about 13.5 billion USDC on Solana in September, Crypto Briefing says
Circle minted roughly 13.5 billion USDC on Solana in September. Crypto Briefing's on-chain compilation calls it the largest monthly stablecoin mint on the network, though the figure counts gross issuance, not net new supply.
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Open USD (OUSD) launches with $468M supply, Stripe distribution deal
Open USD (OUSD), a stablecoin backed by more than 200 organizations, debuted Sept. 30 with about $468 million in circulation and a Stripe distribution deal, entering a market where USDT and USDC hold about 84%.
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NEAR Intents confirms $3.8 million exploit tied to Omni custody integration bug
Cross-chain protocol NEAR Intents confirmed a $3.8 million exploit that it blamed on a bug between its smart contract and Omni's custody architecture. NEAR fell 7.5% to $4.76 within minutes, U.Today reported.
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Drift opens DFX recovery token claims for users hit by April incident
Drift launched DFX, a Solana recovery token that gives April incident victims one token per verified USDT lost, each redeemable from a Recovery Pool holding about 3.1 million USDT, Crypto Briefing reported.
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Ripple unlocks 1 billion XRP from escrow as October begins, Whale Alert shows
Ripple released its scheduled 1 billion XRP from escrow at the start of October in four transactions, leaving about 31.845 billion XRP escrowed for now, according to XRPScan data cited by U.Today.
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Base's Cobalt upgrade lets B20 token issuers configure balance seizures
Base scheduled its Cobalt upgrade for mainnet on Sept. 30 at 18:00 UTC. It adds seizeWithMemo, an opt-in tool that lets B20 issuers reassign holder balances separately from transfer rules.
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MetaMask exits staking validators as precaution after security incident
MetaMask said Wednesday it's responding to a security incident affecting part of its infrastructure and exiting affected staking validators, adding it hasn't found any immediate threat to wallets.
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Solana Co.'s Joseph Chee says China will find a way to manage crypto
Solana Co. executive chairman Joseph Chee said at Korea Blockchain Week that China will eventually find a way to regulate or manage crypto, though mainland bans on trading and mining remain in force.
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MetaMask Staking exits its Lido validators, citing a security incident
MetaMask Staking is exiting its Ethereum validators in the Lido protocol to address a security incident, according to a post on Lido's research forum reported by Crypto Briefing.
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Pump.fun co-founder outlines near-zero-fee app for Solana and crosschain trades
Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen described a mobile and social trading app charging roughly 0% on Solana trades and about 0.1% crosschain, with access to tokens on every chain, per Crypto Briefing.
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Sentora proposes running isolated Aave V4 Hub for 50/50 revenue split
Sentora posted an Aave governance proposal on Sept. 28 to run an isolated V4 Hub for a 50/50 revenue split with the DAO. CryptoSlate's analysis says the Hub's suppliers would bear any bad debt.
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Aztec Labs relaunches zk.money wallet for private stablecoin payments
Aztec Labs relaunched its self-custodial zk.money wallet on Aztec Network three years after shutting it down. Users can send USDC, USDT or DAI privately using readable ENS-based tags.
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Volmex lists Bitcoin implied volatility perpetual futures on Hyperliquid
Volmex Finance listed perpetual futures on its Bitcoin Volmex Implied Volatility Index (BVIV) on Hyperliquid, with up to 5x leverage, hourly funding and a $2 million open-interest cap, Crypto Briefing reported.
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Co-founder Cindy Leow exits Velocity DEX, formerly Drift Protocol, report says
Cindy Leow, co-founder of the Solana perpetuals exchange formerly known as Drift Protocol, is leaving Velocity DEX effective September 29, weeks after a relaunch that followed a $280 million exploit, Crypto Briefing reported.
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Bitwise launches first US spot NEAR ETF on NYSE Arca under ticker NRR
Bitwise has launched the first US spot NEAR ETF, which trades on NYSE Arca as NRR with a 0.75% fee. The fund will stake part of its holdings, and it arrives after NEAR gained about 167% in a month.
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Metaplex launches MPL-3643 token standard for tokenized securities on Solana
Metaplex has launched MPL-3643, a permissioned token standard modeled on Ethereum's ERC-3643 that gives Solana issuers onchain compliance controls. It's in a limited-access alpha, Crypto Briefing reported.
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Solana hits 7,699 monthly active programs as funded wallets climb 38.5%
Solana recorded 7,699 monthly active programs in September, Crypto Briefing reported, while Solscan data showed funded wallets rose 38.5% month over month to 16.10 million.
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Altcoin spot volume hits nearly 4x Bitcoin's, highest ratio since September 2025
Altcoin spot trading volume climbed to nearly four times Bitcoin's, the highest ratio since September 2025, according to Glassnode data reported by Crypto Briefing, as altcoin exchange deposits also rose.
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Tom Lee's BitMine tops 6 million ETH after 17,362 ETH weekly buy
BitMine Immersion Technologies, chaired by Tom Lee, bought 17,362 ETH worth $46.82 million over the prior week, per Lookonchain data, pushing its holdings past 6 million ETH, U.Today reported.
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U.Today analysis: XRP trades near $1.537 as GRAM tests its 200-day average
A U.Today price analysis from September 28 put XRP near $1.537 with support at $1.45 to $1.50, and also covered GRAM's rebound, NEAR's month-long run and Bitcoin near $84,900.
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Vitalik Buterin calls Ethereum a 'cryptographic world computer' and names roadmap upgrades
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said the network is becoming a hybrid of blockchain and modern cryptography, according to U.Today, and named FOCIL, EIP-8288 and Lean consensus among proposed upgrades.
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XRP needs 11% gain to reach $1.70 level Kalshi traders favored, U.Today says
Kalshi traders saw XRP as most likely to hit $1.70 in September, U.Today reported on Sept 27, when the token traded at $1.53 and needed a gain of more than 11% in three days.